Hurricane Briefing for June 2, 2009

The Saffir-Simpson scale is undergoing major changes starting in the 2009 hurricane season.

In the past, the scale assigned a category to individual hurricanes based on wind speed and along with that, a storm surge estimate was provided. However, as Lance Wood with the National Weather Service explains, Hurricane Ike was a perfect example of the inaccuracy of the surge numbers assigned to hurricane categories.

For example, the old scale would only estimate a surge between 6 and 8 feet with a Category 2 storm like Ike. What actually took place was a surge which peaked at 17 feet. So Wood and FOX 26 meteorologist Mike Iscovitz explain how big improvements have been made to the way that storm surge is forecasted.

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